Thunder Finish Third In Plentywood

The Glasgow Kiwanis Thunder swim team keeps on kicking as they took third last weekend at the Plentywood meet.

"Our younger swimmers had so much personal improvement," said Thunder head coach Whitney Billing. "It was really fun to watch them swim and have better times."

The team performance improved for the Thunder as they had more than double the amount of swimmers at the Plentywood meet than they did the prior week in Roundup.

"This weekend was much more of a full team effort," Billing said. "Everybody did so well."

Dalton Sand once again had a great weekend in the water. Sand, who competes in the 9-10 age group, had two second place finishes in the 100-meter individual medley and 50-meter freestyle. Sand then followed those performances up with three first place finishes, winning the 50-meter butterfly and being part of the winning relay teams in the 100 free and 100 medley events.

Trevor Johnson was another swimmer that had a great day in the pool. Johnson, competing in the 11-12 age group, had three first place finishes and two second place finishes.

In total, the Thunder had an astounding 39 top-three finishes which gave them 730 points overall for the event.

With the Plentywood meet behind them, Billing and assistant coach Irene Whitmer are now getting their swimmers focused for the upcoming meet here in Glasgow this weekend.

"We're really looking forward to this weekend," Billing said. "You usually have a big turnout when you host your own meet, but we'll see how it ends up with it being a holiday weekend."

Whitmer said that after all of the meets being on the road thus far this season, the swimmers are excited to finally be swimming in front of the home crowd.

"When these kids get in the water and are swimming in front of a home crowd, it gives them that extra boost," said Whitmer. "They've been looking forward to this meet."

Billing added that the meet is also helpful for the local economy since each meet runs over the course of two days.

"We're expecting all of our full Eastern Federation teams to compete this weekend," Billing said. "Hopefully we put on a good meet because Glasgow has always been known to put on good meets in the past."

The meet starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday and runs through Sunday.